


Pursuing Wisdom

by greyvvardenfell



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: (dyslexic!fenris is one of my favorite headcanons for him ok), Dyslexia, Fluff, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Red Hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-20 02:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12423393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/greyvvardenfell
Summary: Adam Hawke helps Fenris with his reading.





	Pursuing Wisdom

Fenris squirmed, flexing his hands and driving his fingernails into the smooth leather of the massive armchair as if he could force himself to concentrate by sheer willpower. But the letters on the page laughed at him, wiggling and taunting and rearranging themselves into complicated and meaningless strings and he felt a familiar helplessness anchor itself at the base of his throat, threatening to drag him down, back to the bottom. Where he belonged.

He broke the book’s hold on him and threw himself back against the chair with a thump. No. Danarius was dead. Fenris had killed him. Now he was free, free to pursue the wisdom long hidden from him by the magister’s cruelty, free to explore the world at his own pace with his own hands, unfettered and unbound. Free, indeed, to curse these new frustrations openly, without fear of retribution from the mage with whom he now shared a home.

“Are you alright?” Adam Hawke glanced up at him from the other side of the room, his straight brows cutting imposing lines over his pale gray eyes. His black hair flowed over his narrow shoulders, loose from its typical braid.

Fenris chuckled, low and deep in his throat. Even to his ears it sounded harsh. “The usual,” he muttered. “It will pass.”

Adam stood with a frown and set his own book on an end table before joining his lover, reaching for his lyrium-lined hands to cradle them in his own. “Fuck Danarius,” he sighed, as blunt as ever.

Fenris pulled one of his hands free to wind his fingers through Adam’s hair, leaning forward until their foreheads touched, letting the smell of bergamot and pine and something uniquely him wash over him and remind him of the man he was now, the man who was loved by the Champion of Kirkwall. The man who loved him in return.

“You don’t have to keep forcing yourself to do this, Fenris,” Adam murmured. “The books will still be here. There’s no rush.”

He grunted. “There is much I would like to learn, and with the way Kirkwall is progressing, I wouldn’t be so sure of the future.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the pessimistic one.”

“It’s a burden we can share.”

Fenris’s half-smile melted Adam’s heart every time he offered it, the way his green-gold eyes softened and the corners of his full lips teased him so playfully. “Can I offer you a compromise, then?”

“I’m listening.” Fenris withdrew his head from Adam’s and shifted his snowy white bangs out of his eyes.

“When you’re done for the day, or the moment, or whatever, let me help. I know it’s not as fast if I read to you, but it’s something, at least. And I’m happy to do it. You know I am.”

Their eyes met and a filament of silence stretched between them, feeding on the depth of the words. Adam Hawke did not often offer his aid these days. Except, of course, to Fenris.

“Truly, it would probably be faster,” the elf admitted grudgingly, dropping his gaze to the vexing spread of pages still open on the table beside him. “I… thank you.”

Adam smiled, a rare sight for anyone outside the estate, as he reached around Fenris’s slim body to pick up the book. “Where did you stop?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Fictober prompt, "There they were, pursuing wisdom."


End file.
